Recently, wireless data, entertainment and mobile communications technologies have become increasingly prevalent, particularly in the household and computing environment. The convergence of these communications within the home and elsewhere has created a market for merging many disparate devices into wireless network architectures capable of seamlessly supporting and integrating the requirements of all of these devices. Seamless connectivity and rapid transfer of data, without confusing cables and wires for various interfaces that will not and cannot talk to each other, is a compelling proposition for a broad market.
To that end, communication industry consortia, such as the MultiBand OFDM Alliance (MBOA), Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) and the WiMedia Alliance are establishing design guidelines and standards to provide interoperability of these wireless devices. For example, Wireless 1394, Wireless USB, and native IP-based applications are being development based on ultra wideband (UWB) radio or WiMedia Convergence Platform.
In particular, the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) is an international, cross-industry collaboration of consumer electronics, computing industry and mobile device companies. The main objective of DLNA is the establishment of a wired and wireless interoperable network of Personal Computers (PC), Consumer Electronics (CE) and mobile devices in the home and on the road, which may enable a seamless environment for sharing new digital media and content services. DLNA is focused on delivering an interoperability framework of design guidelines based on internationally recognized open industry standards together with a certification/logo program to officially verify and validate the conformance and interoperability of compliant products for the consumers.
DLNA defines three types of roles for devices in the DLNA network, a digital media renderer role, a digital media controller (control point) role and a digital media server role. A device having the digital media server role is a component capable of storing and sourcing media. A device that may have the digital media server role may be, for example, a set-top-box, a digital video recorder, or a personal computer (PC). A device having a digital media rendered role may be configured to show to the user the content provided to it by other devices. Devices configured as digital media controllers (control point role) can initiate activities as a third-party controller, for example, start the display of a media from a digital media server device on a digital media renderer device, i.e. control point devices are configrued to control how and where to render content that is provided by the server. A device can naturally assume one or more roles. For example, a device that is configured as both the renderer role and the control point may be termed a digital media player. Digital media players can acquire media from a digital media server and play (render) it to the user. A digital media player may be, for example, a television or a home theater system.